Scrap

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office said on Friday that deputies arrested four men in the theft of scrap metal in Mount Airy this week. Police said Travis Waddell, 19, Branden Battle, 19, and Adam Nicholas Toth, 22, all from Mount Airy; and Dwayne Douglas Frazier, 32, of Boyds, were each charged with trespassing and theft. In addition, Waddell was charged with possession of marijuana. The Sheriff's Office said that on Thursday, Nov. 1, at about 1:45 p.m., deputies were called to the 5800 block of Bethel Road in Mount Airy to investigate a theft complaint.

A set of historic wrought-iron gates that were stolen and scrapped from Dundalk's Battle Acre Monument Park will be replaced, Baltimore County officials said Monday. While residents have been raising money to replace the gates, county officials said Edwin F. Hale Sr., 1 s t Mariner Bank founder and owner of the Baltimore Blast soccer team, would pay for new gates at the park. "I'm glad it's being maintained and getting the recognition it deserves," said Hale, who grew up in Dundalk.

Charles Campbell's commentary is a concise and well presented argument for a reconsideration of President Obama's refusal to approve the Keystone XL pipeline and for a revamping of our energy policies ("D.C.'s Keystone Kops," Jan. 30). The article should be read by all of out political leaders, and I'm speaking from the point of view of an Obama supporter and liberal-leaning Independent. Dianne Salmon

A Dundalk man has been charged with stealing and scrapping the historic wrought-iron gates at Battle Acre Monument Park that were reported missing in June, Baltimore County Police said. Detectives have charged George Elias Sotirakis, 34, in the theft, after detectives said he was spotted on surveillance video, and identified through information from local scrap yards. As for the gates, "unfortunately the gates are gone forever," police spokesman Cpl. John Wachter said. The 100-year-old spiked gates had long adorned the park's North Point Road entrance, and were placed during a previous improvements to the park in 1914.

Union Bridge officials said yesterday that they will probably scrap a proposal to start fining property owners for repeat nuisance calls that tie up their police service, but are hoping to come up with another solution. Mayor Bret D. Grossnickle said the council will likely start looking for other options in dealing with repeated police calls to the same addresses for loud music, drinking, arguing and fighting. Grossnickle's comments came the day after residents overflowed Monday night's public hearing in nearly unanimous opposition to a proposed ordinance that they characterized as overly punitive, possibly illegal and a deterrent to calling police for help.

By Michael James and Michael James,Sun Staff Writer | December 15, 1994

An undercover police detective posing as a hobo sold $2.60 worth of scrap metal to the United Iron and Metal Co., and now the Baltimore-based company is charged with 10 criminal violations that could bring up to $26,000 in fines.The charges, filed Tuesday, allege that United Iron has been violating a city public ordinance requiring buyers of scrap metal to file records of their transactions with the city Police Department.Detectives began the investigation after the recent arrest of a homeless man who said he stole brass placards off downtown buildings and sold them to a scrap metal dealer, said police Sgt. Michael Tabor.

Three Baltimore scrap metal companies have pleaded guilty to improperly buying metal, after a city crackdown on thieves who strip metal from vacant houses to sell.Each of the companies did not keep accurate records of their transactions and did not submit transaction sheets to police officials, as required by law. Police detectives depend on dealers to record who brought in the metal, in case the materials were stolen.Industrial Metals-Early Corp. of the 1500 block of N. Warwick Ave. was fined $800, Franklintown Metals & Cores of the 100 block of McPhail St. was fined $450 and Baltimore Scrap Corp.

Anne Arundel County police checking out a suspected shoplifter charged with stealing building supplies stumbled upon illegal scrap metal operation and charged two Baltimore men and a Glen Burnie man with stealing street and construction signs.The men allegedly sold the signs and a stolen aluminum boat to a scrap dealer in the 300 block of Washington Blvd. in Baltimore, police said.Officers became interested in the Glen Burnie man last week after seeing reports in which he was charged with stealing building supplies.

A military spokesman said yesterday that more bombs could remain hidden under debris at a former ship scrap yard on the Baltimore waterfront where 12 explosives were discovered this week. Ned Christensen, spokesman for the Army's Fort Myer in Arlington, Va., said the bombs found by construction workers in Fairfield were part of a heap of scrap metal more than 20 feet high and that several similar piles nearby have not been searched. "Large ships were dismantled there, and there is scrap and debris all over the place.

County police checking out a suspected shoplifter charged with stealing building supplies stumbled upon an illegal scrap-metal operation and charged two Baltimore men and a Glen Burnie man with stealing street and construction signs.The men were allegedly selling the signs and other metal items to a scrap dealer on Washington Boulevard in Baltimore, police said.A team of Northern District officers became interested in the Glen Burnie man last week after seeing several reports in which he was charged with stealing building supplies and began watching the man's home in the 300 block of Glenwood Ave. A detective drove by Thursday and saw a pickup truck with with about 50 directional street and construction signs in the bed.The detective followed two men in the truck to a scrap-metal dealer in the 3500 block of Washington Blvd.

The Ravens' joint practice with the San Francisco 49ers scheduled for Friday at M&T Bank Stadium has been canceled, the team announced Saturday, citing rules in the NFL's collective bargaining agreement with its players. The CBA limits the number of consecutive days a team can practice or take part in football activities during training camp. The decision to call off Friday's event stems from the 49ers' practice and travel schedule leading up to Thursday's first preseason game at 7:30 p.m. "The CBA, the way their schedule sets up, they're not going to be able to do it," Ravens coach John Harbaugh said.

Two years ago I moved to Baltimore, where the roads are littered with pot holes (and litter) - I should know because I've had to circle them to find parking. Two of my housemates have had their cars broken into, my high taxes make my escrow payments exceed my mortgage, and a train bellows its horn in my neighborhood at all hours of the night. So it surprises me that in my first public request of this city, I am simply asking for it's leaders to do nothing at all. I am a 33-year-old professional, and I am a demographic that every city fights to have.

Facing mounting opposition from state and local officials, the Obama administration has dropped the idea of converting a vacant office building in Baltimore into a shelter for immigrant children who have entered the country illegally, officials familiar with the decision said Wednesday. Federal officials concluded that Metro West on North Greene Street, a huge complex on the edge of the city's long-standing Superblock redevelopment effort, was unsuitable to help accommodate the recent surge in unaccompanied children crossing the Southwest border.

Almost 18,680 people asked for more time to sign up for insurance through the state's health exchange because they had trouble with the website during open enrollment, but exchange officials said Tuesday that many have already had their issues addressed. About 4,000 of those have been enrolled in person or on the phone by an agent hired by the exchange, many others likely have enrolled on their own online, and officials assume that some on the list are duplicates. But everyone left on the list to be enrolled has been contacted by phone or email, and the majority should be helped by April 18, in time for insurance to begin May 1, officials said during the exchange's board meeting.

Republicans in Annapolis continue their push to get more information about what went wrong with the state's troubled health exchange website, and to scrap the site entirely. Maryland Senate Minority Leader David Brinkley called for an independent investigation, but was told in a letter from Attorney General Douglas Gansler that his office lacked the authority. Gansler, a gubernatorial candidate, said he too was concerned that "the taxpayers of Maryland had been poorly served by the executive branch's mismanagement of health care reform implementation," and reiterated comments he made earlier about exploring recovery of taxpayer dollars from contractors.

State officials have reached an agreement with an Anne Arundel County family to clean up Maryland's largest known tire dump, a decades-old stockpile of hundreds of thousands of tires rotting in ravines in Crownsville and threatening a waterway leading to the South River. The $2.5 million cleanup will be the latest in a two-decades-old effort by the Maryland Department of the Environment that has resulted in the removal of 10.6 million tires from more than 900 sites around the state.

By David Folkenflik and David Folkenflik,SUN NATIONAL STAFF | May 19, 2000

WASHINGTON - Provoked by the sluggish pace of dismantling decrepit American ships, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are clashing on how best to prod the U.S. Maritime Administration to rid the country's waterways of these spectral, contaminated vessels. As part of a much larger bill setting spending limits for the Defense Department, the House voted yesterday to require that all such ships be sold overseas for scrap, a controversial practice that has caused deaths, serious injuries and environmental hazards.

It is the nuclear age equivalent of beating swords into plowshares: the conversion of mildly radioactive scrap metal from the United States' obsolete defense arsenal into a vast array of consumer products. The Cold War rubble has become raw material for I-beams and automobiles, jewelry and silverware, leg braces and hip replacements. However, as the volume of radioactive recyclables mushrooms, the federal government still lacks uniform health standards for safely disposing of the material.

Since Gov. Martin O'Malley declared that the state's health insurance exchange website was functional for most users, anecdotal reports have been mixed. Some people report continued problems with frozen screens and other glitches that have bedeviled the site; others say they were finally able to enroll with relative ease. The preliminary numbers of new enrollments, though, suggest some genuine improvement. Monday saw about 1,100 enrollments, nearly 50 percent more than the site's best day before the fixes went into place.

Apparel retailer DTLR Holding Inc. of Hanover said Friday that it has canceled its plans for an initial public offering, citing an unspecified "business development" as the reason. The company declined to comment beyond its one-sentence announcement. DTLR announced its intention to go public a month ago, saying it planned to raise up to $75 million in the IPO. The company, which calls itself a "street-inspired lifestyle retailer," has 95 stores that sell shoes, shirts, caps and other items.